WEST NORRITON — When the only goal that remains is to make it states, sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on the task at hand. Maybe the consolation rounds are just one game too long. Or maybe it’s the prospect of a full week of practice in the gym with no screaming fans, no watchful eyes, no cheerleaders and no red-blooded opposition, that makes it easy to look ahead and neglect the moment.

Although it wasn’t pretty, Norristown won out the playback round Friday night in a 47-42 win over Central Bucks South.

When asked to comment on the win, coach Mike Evan’s had one word.

“Ugly.”

And it wasn’t easy, either. Norristown had to scrap and scrape and scratch and scuttle to solidify their standings at the ninth seed in the PIAA state tournament.

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“Don’t get me wrong, it was good to get the win,” Evans said. “We were a bit off of our game tonight, I think maybe we’re just anxious about getting into states.”

Everyone on the team seemed to have a different take on Norristown’s slow start and inability to ever really find a rhythm.

“I think we took them lightly,” DaQuan Holcomb said. “We came out slow, let them get by us and we took lazy shots.”

“The game was too close for comfort,” Josh Johnson. “I was expecting them to play us zone, and they manned us up and played us really strong.”

When it comes down to the final score, a win’s a win, but as Norristown basketball has been guilty of throughout the season is a momentary lapse of effort through the assumption that just their skill will deliver them a win, gift-wrapped with a bow.

“It was sloppy, but we’ll take it,” Bernard Gordon said. “Usually we never finish games, and I’m just happy we got it together and finished strong.”

CB South came to play, whether Norristown “kind of destroyed them” the last time around or not, the visiting Titans didn’t look to just limp in and play dead.

While the Eagles were settling for jump shots, the Titans were working the ball and fighting to the rim. But once the big men realized their size advantage over the guard-oriented Titans, they took over. Norristown’s guards combined for 13 total points, while Bryant, Johnson and Hargrove put up 29 combined. If it weren’t for buckling down on defense, the outcome of the game would certainly have been different.

“If the offense isn’t kicking, we got to kick it up on defense,” Evans said. “These teams wouldn’t be here if it was going to be easy.”

After holding a tie into halftime, the Eagles came out firing in the third quarter and built up a five-point lead. But again in the fourth, the Titans fought back and brought the game within one point. Although Norristown would never relinquish the lead, the Titans had an opportunity to tie the game down three with less than a minute remaining, but an opportune stop led to a layup by Luke Kelley to give Norristown a five-point lead with 11 seconds remaining.

In asking the players how they hope to improve from the win and improve during the week, the only solution was to practice hard.

“We want to take the momentum of our wins into states,” Gordon said. “I want to see our guys playing extremely hard this week, especially the seniors — even the ones who don’t start. I want us to work really hard.”